Lucas Bell 
We love to highlight cool muscle car builds here on MC&T, but it is not very often that we talk about a car that someone is building in their own home garage. However, the sheer amount of fully-documented work that Mopar fanatic Steve Mirabelli has put into this custom Plymouth GTX build is hard to ignore.
Calling this car a Plymouth GTX might not be entirely accurate, as the muscle car started its life as a 2010 Dodge Challenger R/T. After living a brutal life that included a horrible yellow and red respray, The Challenger ended up getting its front smashes in during a collision. That is when Mirabelli, a NASCAR Sprint Cup car builder for Hendrick Motorsports, got involved.
While his intentions for the car originally involved a body swap with a vintage Plymouth Roadrunner, the shell he intended to buy was eventually purchased before Mirabelli had a chance. With the Challenger already being prepped for a build over the course of a year, Mirabelli decided to wait and see if any other ideas came to him. That is when he came across a rendering done by artist Doug Schramm. The sketch is an interpretation of what the 1971 Plymouth GTX would look like during this modern muscle car era, and the result is quite the looker. Mirabelli noticed that the greenhouse of the sketch and that of the 2010 Challenger he had were quite similar, and that is when it clicked.
Over the course of the last year, Mirabelli has detailed his effort to recreate Schramm’s sketch on his YouTube Channel. Through the use of aftermarket body panels and a helluva lot of custom body work, the build is starting to really come together two years into the project. There is a 43-part video series involving this beaten up Challenger’s transformation, which is highly detailed and enjoyable to follow. And if you’ve powered through everything on Netflix, consider this to be your next binge watch. The fact that this man only has 1,200 subscribers is unbelievable, as his skills seem to match that of any well-known builder you may read about.
If you are looking for something to watch during these troubling times, go give Mirabelli’s channel a chance. We promise that it isn’t going to disappoint.
